top of page
  • Writer's pictureRaúl Revuelta

Alpine Ski World Champions: Christl Cranz

Updated: Jul 17


Saalbach 2025. Alpine Ski World Champions: Christl Cranz

Christl Franziska Antonia Cranz-Borchers (Brussels, July 1, 1914 – Oberstaufen-Steibis, Germany, September 28, 2004) was a German alpine ski racer who dominated international competition in the 1930s, winning twelve World Championship titles between 1934 and 1939.


In 1934, at the Alpine World Ski Championships in St. Moritz, she won the Slalom and the Combined competition and was second in Downhill behind Swiss Anny Rüegg.


After becoming Alpine skiing’s first female Olympic champion in Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936, Cranz continued to collect medals at a dizzying rate, winning three golds in the 1937 world championships in Chamonix (Slalom, Downhill, and Combined) and repeating the feat two years later in Zakopane (Poland).


In 1938 she won the Slalom and the Combined at the championships held in Engelberg (Switzerland).


At the 1941 World Championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Cranz won two additional titles and then retired. Later, in 1946, the FIS canceled the results and deemed the Championships unofficial as the attendees only included Axis nationals and citizens of neutral countries: Italy, the German Reich (Austria joined Germany in 1938), Bulgaria, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Yugoslavia, Romania, Switzerland, and Hungary.

Even without these titles, Cranz, who was never beaten in a Combined event throughout her career, won a total of 15 World Championship medals (12 gold and 3 silver) an outstanding record that remains unapproached, with Mikaela Shiffrin just one behind with 14.


Following the Second World War, she set up and ran a ski school, eventually retiring in 1987. She died aged 90 on 28 September 2004 in Oberstaufen-Steibis.



Olympic Winter Games Starts: 3 

Olympic Winter Games Medals: 2 

Olympic Winter Games Victories: 2 


FIS Alpine World Ski Championships Starts: 15 

FIS Alpine World Ski Championships Podiums: 15 

FIS Alpine World Ski Championships Victories: 12 

Comments


bottom of page